DETROIT – How do you take Detroit’s murder rate to a level not seen in 60 years, bring shootings down 13% and take carjackings down a whopping 36%?
For starters, a push from police, prosecutors and the judiciary to clear a backlog of thousands of felony gun cases.
“Nobody wants to hear about the numbers of arrests, what people want to hear about is the overall reduction in crime,” Wayne County Executive Warren Evans.
Couple the push between the city and county to clear the case back along with beefed-up staffing at the prosecutor’s office and sheriff’s department and this according to both is the outcome. There’s more though. Detroit, for the first time, is investing millions into community groups with proven track records of addressing crime to work in various sections of the city. Activist Teferi Brent, who has done frontline work on the streets for years, says the problems are systemic.
“Chief White has said for years you can’t arrest your way out of the problem‚” Brent said.
He points to the work being done to offer those returning from prison a second chance to show young men their lives can be so much more than street crime as the force for that systemic change.
“This is the work of everyone not just law enforcement, I’d argue law enforcement is the smaller part of the solution to this issue,” Brent said. “It’s the work of people in the community who are organized and working to address the root cause issues that contribute to criminogenic behavior.”